Sunday, January 29, 2012

This article from the New Yorker is fascinating reading. Pepsi wants to move its business to healthy eating, a fascinating insight into corporate strategy. Also just mind boggling how a soft drink company wants to move into the market for healthy eating.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The reaction against the Vietnam War, by students and domestic groups inside america was a unique challenge to the intelligence community. I have read about the SDS, the Weathermen Underground and heard about the events that happened but I was skeptical that it could have been orchestrated by China or Vietnamese authorities.

Frank Rafalko is honest enough to admit that they were very close but they just didn't find anything and I think this only makes things more interesting. What really did happen, will we ever find out? Were naive students really capable of organising a terrorist campaign inside the USA without external help?

Sunday, January 15, 2012

In the Old Testament right after man started to live on the earth there was a problem. God didn't like his creation and he wanted to wipe them out. According to Tillich in 'The Eternal Now', this is the same problem that we have now, only it is man who has decided there is a problem and wants to wipe himself out, through which ever form of apocalypse is trendy at the moment - for Tillich it was nuclear. God took a risk, much the same as when we are creative, you take a risk and sometmes you decide to start again. Perhaps man today in planning the space race is subconsciously feeling the same fear - that it is time to start again in a different place.What is the message of God that we can bring for us today:

God saw promise in Noah and sent the rainbow to promise it would never happen again.

Tillich concludes that when we see ourselves as a tiny speck, in time and the universe this problem will always appear. The only answer is to find that God is outside time.

"Only the eternal can save us from the anxiety of being a meaningless bit of matter in a meaningless vortex of atoms and electrons. Only the eternal can give us the certainty that the earth, and with it, mankind, has not existed in vain."

The story of the merger of two huge steel companies and the drive and determination of an Indian entrepreneur, this was an awesome read, especially as the authors seem to have been in the very room where all the action was taking place. I would strongly recommend it - even if you are not a fan of business books.

About the blog

I have been writing this blog for over ten years. I tend to be quite eclectic in my range of interests and you will see that the subjects vary from Heaven by George Herbert to Curious George. The main reason I started writing this blog was to get my view across that the reviews we see in the papers come from the literary establishment. Writers who review books by their friends and this does not mean that the reviews are accurate. Along the way I got distracted, I even added some of my artwork but I hope you enjoy reading it. My favourite post is from January 2005 -English literature and geology do mix!- You should search it out.